CHAPTER XII
TWO CONVERSATIONS
"JACK, you have not played fair with me; what is it that has happened?" Frank Kent asked quietly.
It was an hour since dinner time at the Lodge and Frank had so insisted upon Jack's taking a walk with him that without rudeness she had not been able to refuse. It was an enchanting June night, warmer than usual in that part of the western country, and with a moon that shines perhaps nowhere on this earth with exactly the same wide radiance.
Jack and Frank had walked down the tall aisles of cottonwood trees near the house and were now standing a few yards on the farther side of them in a clear and revealing light. At Frank's words the girl flinched as he had known that she would. For just that reason he had chosen them, since nothing could hurt Jacqueline so much or make her come so immediately to her own defence as any suggestion that she had not played fair. Other girls might not suffer so greatly from this accusation; but honesty, candor and a kind of straightforwardness, which some persons are pleased to think as masculine traits, had always been Jack's leading characteristics. Now, however, though her companion waited impatiently for her reproach or her denial, for a moment he heard neither.
"I am so sorry, Frank, that you feel in that way about me," Jack began finally. Then, almost in a whisper: "I have not intended to be unfair to you. I—I had not promised you anything."
Jack was not looking into Frank's face as she spoke, but at the silvery whiteness of the ground beneath her feet.
"But nothing has happened, if you mean that I have become either angry or disappointed in you," she added timidly.
Difficult as the girl had anticipated this conversation might be, it was more trying than she had expected.
What could she say? How could she truthfully present the situation to Frank, as it appeared to her, without putting Olive in an impossible position? Because in spite of Olive's denial through the message to Jean at the close of the last Ranch Girls' book, Jacqueline was still firmly convinced that her friend felt so great an affection for Frank Kent that it was influencing her whole life. Did it not explain why she absolutely refused to consider Donald Harmon's proposal of marriage, in spite of Don's devotion and her grandmother's expressed desire? Moreover, even if Olive did not like Donald sufficiently well to consider marrying him, why should she insist that she intended devoting her future to teaching the Indian children?
To Jack Ralston such a career suggested pure martyrdom. Olive might do anything else in the world that she liked, even if her grandmother left her no inheritance. For there was Miss Winthrop, who regarded Olive almost as a daughter and who would do everything possible for her. She might have almost any happiness and yet Olive actually talked as if she meant to do what she had so long said she intended as soon as she was a few years older and the proper arrangements could be made.
Jack bit her lips until they positively hurt. Actually she felt a shiver of repugnance at the idea of going away with Frank to every happiness if her going involved leaving her dearest friend to such a fate. Could she ever really be happy with this thought in the back of her mind?
No, Jack decided once again that she was far stronger than Olive and better able to look after herself and to bear, if need be, both loss and loneliness. Besides, had she not had many joys in the past and Olive for many years so few? Surely if Olive still cared for Frank, as she believed, in a little while there need be no further doubt of it. In that event it must be her duty to tell Frank that she did not love him and would never consent to leave the ranch for his sake. After that Frank would undoubtedly turn at once to Olive, who had always been his friend and upon whose sympathy he could surely count. Olive, too, was so much prettier, her nature so much gentler and sweeter, she would make a far better wife. Frank might be angry with her at first, Jack acknowledged to herself at this moment, but he would be more than grateful in the end.
Jack laid her hand pleadingly on the young man's coat sleeve.
"Frank," she asked more wistfully than she herself realized, "won't you promise not to talk about your feeling for me for a time? Won't you just stay on here with us at the Rainbow Ranch as you used to do and let us have a happy time together? I am worried about such a number of things. Perhaps the money in Rainbow Mine is going to give out and we may have no further income from it. Then there is this strike of our miners. Jim and I don't say a great deal about it to the others, but we are so afraid the old men may resort to violence when we try to get things to running smoothly again and that Ralph or some one else may be seriously hurt. Don't you see that I just can't think about anything else now?"
"No, Jack dear, I can't honestly see why your having all these worries and annoyances can affect your knowing whether or not you return my love. It is not as though I had never spoken of it—you have had a whole year to decide. But if you wish me to wait longer, of course I shall do as you ask. Only please don't let it be too long."
Then before the girl could reply she and her companion had both started, and instinctively Jack clutched at the young man's arm.
The next moment she gave a relieved laugh.
"I don't see why I should jump in that fashion just because we heard a slight noise behind us," she apologized. "I suppose other people have just the same right that we have to be outdoors enjoying the moonlight."
Jack then turned around, looking back into the grove of cottonwood trees. "Jean, Olive, Frieda," she called lightly, but when no one responded, thinking no more of the incident she moved on a few steps.
"Come on, Frank, let us have a real walk, it is too lovely to go back to the Lodge so soon. I want to ask you such a lot of questions and about your mother and father and Kent Place," she pleaded.
Frank's attention was not to be so easily diverted. For several moments he continued staring at the spot where undoubtedly he had heard the noise of light footsteps only a few seconds before. The sound had come from the neighborhood of the trees nearest them; but why did no figure emerge into the light or move off again in the opposite direction? The night was so bright and the air so clear that no one could have escaped without being either seen or heard. But Frank was too interested in the prospect of a longer time in the moonlight alone with Jacqueline to waste a great deal more thought upon a possible intruder. Once again he glanced back, but as no one was in sight, he and Jack were soon deep in an intimate and happy conversation.
Notwithstanding, neither the girl nor the man were mistaken in their original impression that some one had been in their neighborhood during at least a part of their conversation. For when they were both safely out of sight a slender figure stole from behind one of the largest cottonwood trees and ran off with the fleetness and noiselessness of a wild creature. There was an ugly expression on the face—one of resentment and suspicion and yet of so great unhappiness that the other emotions might have been forgiven.
For the Indian boy, Carlos, fifteen minutes before had just concluded a conversation with the only person in the world for whom he felt any real affection. And foolish and mistaken as his dream had been, it hurt no less to find it shattered.
A few minutes after dinner, when all the family were together on the veranda at Rainbow Lodge, Olive had several times noticed Carlos hovering about in their vicinity, now on a pretence of bringing a message to Jim Colter which might as easily have waited until morning, then asking some perfectly unnecessary question of her. And finally with the persistence and stoicism of his race he had planted himself like a slender and upright column against a side of the house, deliberately to wait until he could have his way.
There was not the slightest use of pretending that Olive did not understand what his intention was. Carlos wished to talk with her, wished to have an immediate answer to the letter which he had lately written her. Moreover, she feared that unless she gave in to him he might show some trace of his feeling before the assembled company.
Quietly Olive slipped over to Ruth Colter.
"Ruth," she whispered, when no one was paying any especial attention to either of them, "I have something rather important that I must say to Carlos. He is here now waiting. Do you think it would make any difference if I go and talk to him for a few moments? We won't go any distance from the house, just to some place where no one may be disturbed by us."
And Ruth agreed to the girl's request without considering it seriously. To the older woman Carlos was only a child, sometimes rather a difficult one it was true, but at any rate only an idle, mischievous boy, whom the Ranch girls in their usual impulsive generosity had befriended and in a measure adopted. But that Carlos should think of himself as a man and actually have the impertinence to consider himself in love with Olive, Ruth simply could not have believed had she been told the truth at this moment.
So Olive, pretending to go to her own room for a scarf, had afterwards stolen out of a side door and come close up to where the Indian boy was standing.
"Carlos," she said kindly, "I would rather you did not linger about the veranda because you wish to speak to me. If you will come away with me for a little distance we can talk. I received your letter and you want to know what I think of it?"
Without a word the boy nodded, but he followed the girl for a few yards until they were standing ankle deep in the shimmering green foliage of Frieda's violet beds which were not far from the Lodge. And although in the path a few feet away there was a small bench where the girls often rested after their work among the flowers, Olive would not consent to sitting down.
Slowly and patiently as she could, she explained to Carlos the utter impossibility of his feeling for her. In the first place, he was a boy while she was a number of years his senior. Then he was completely mistaken in his idea that because she had been raised among Indian people she cared for their life or habits. Not for anything on earth would she return to their simple and primitive existence. Because Olive was essentially gentle and because her sympathy and understanding of the Indian boy's nature was a matter of experience as well as kindness of heart, she did try to take the sting away from the present situation so far as she could; yet she felt obliged to be firm, for there must be no repetition of Carlos' foolish letter to her. He must appreciate that she was fond of him because he had once befriended her in a difficulty, and that she was grateful and would always be interested in his welfare. But to care for him in any other fashion was absolutely out of the question. Never again must he even dare to refer to the subject.
Notwithstanding her resolute attitude and the arguments which she had used so forcibly, at the end of their conversation Olive did not feel sure that Carlos was as entirely convinced of the absurdity of his desire as he should have been. For she had spared him the one course open to her that might have brought him to his senses—sheer ridicule. Therefore when Olive was back in her own room alone and undressing for the night, since she had not felt in the mood for rejoining her friends, she wondered if she had been altogether wise. Certainly she had not liked Carlos' manner, and two remarks of his near the conclusion of their talk had left her very angry.
"It is Miss Ralston who has turned you against me," he had muttered sullenly. "She don't like me, she don't understand. She thinks I am no more than a servant about her place. If it had not been for her you might have stayed always in the wilderness with me when both of us were children. Then you would never have known of your people nor learned to love the stupid white man's world. Miss Ralston is my enemy; therefore I hate her." And with these words Carlos had drawn up his lean, boyish frame with the majesty of a deposed king.
Olive's sudden wrath had humbled him for the moment at least; yet just before she turned to go he had said again with equal passion, although his manner was quieter and more subdued.
"Then if it is not Miss Ralston who has come between us, there is some one you care for. I wonder if it can be the far-away guest and friend, who arrived this afternoon by the iron trail of the prairies?"
When Olive did not answer but walked quietly back to the Lodge, Carlos stood for a time like a bronze statue, silent and unmoving; then swift as a shadow he threaded his way between the cottonwood trees, actually observing Jack and Frank from the beginning to the end of their conversation, although hearing little of what they said.